The so-called Austrian school of sociologists, of which Ludwig Gumplowicz was the most prominent, consisted of influential apostles of Social Darwinism. Gumplowicz saw sociology as the study of groups in conflict. He applied Darwin's theories of "survival of the fittest" and the "struggle for existence" to a system called conflict theory, which exerted great influence in social, political, and legal studies.
Gumplowicz, born March 9, 1838, in Krakow, now in Poland, was the son of well-to-do Polish Jews. He studied at the universities of Krakow and Vienna, Austria, deciding upon journalism as his career. As a young man, he became a supporter of the Polish national movement, but after its collapse, he rejected politics and turned to the academic life. In 1875, he became a professor of public law at the University of Graz, Austria, remaining there until shortly before his death on August 19, 1909. On that day, Gumplowicz, stricken with cancer, and his invalid wife of many years committed suicide together. His major works were written in German, including The Outlines of Sociology (1885).
Gumplowicz is known mainly for his disbelief in the permanence of social progress and for his assertion that the state originates through inevitable conflict, not through cooperation or divine inspiration. The individual, he said, never functions as such, only as a member of a group. It is the group's influence that determines the individual's behavior. Therefore, history and social change are products of social groups. Gumplowicz called this tendency for humans to form groups and develop a sense of unity, "syngenism." At first, there is conflict among races, which, according to Gumplowicz, are primitive groups. One primitive group wins, dominates the other, and forms a state consisting of winners and losers. Wars take places between states and the whole process begins again on a grander scale. Eventually, a division of labor system is formed within a state, which produces social classes. These classes engage in conflict. The laws that result in a state are determined by these class struggles, not by some sense of abstract justice. Higher civilizations are created through warfare. The defeated warriors are not killed, but forced to work for the victors. This leads to class distinctions since the winners gain prosperity, which produces culture. The victors now also have time for leisure, producing the appearance of an upper class, those who live their lives from the work of others. From this leisure class, Gumplowicz claimed, as did Aristotle, springs civilization, art, science, and literature. Societies, he said, cannot be stopped from inevitable collapse through welfare programs or social planning.
The primitive groups, or races, defined in Gumplowicz's theory existed at the dawn of history when humankind split into various groups depending upon physical type, language, religion, and social patterns. During tribal raids, women of the weaker tribe were captured and brought into the victors' camp. Gumplowicz believed this practice to be the start of the original family. Just as the winning warrior exercised rights over those he captured, so these wars also led to the institution of private property.
Although Gumplowicz laid out only the general concept of how states originate, his followers went into greater detail, dividing state formation into various stages. In the first stage, the aggressors are merely content to kill and enslave. In the second stage, they realize it is more beneficial for the losers to live and work. This stage allows the birth of the state. In the third stage, the work of the enslaved allows leisure time for the victors. In the fourth stage, the victors settle permanently in the territory occupied by the enslaved instead of merely visiting to collect taxes. In the fifth stage, the victors become arbitrators for disputes among the conquered, and in the sixth stage, winners and losers join, not as aliens, but upper and lesser classes to form the state.
Gumplowicz saw each primitive group alien and barely human. It was, therefore, not morally evil to destroy the enemy. It is this belief and his work entitled Race Struggle that some scholars see--ironically, since Gumplowicz was Jewish--as having an important influence of the development of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi theories.
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